Potter Puppet Pals

Hi guys! I haven’t posted for a long time, been quite busy with being important.  I do however have to help in promoting this:  

Longest…Post…Ever!

For the few of you who read this regularly, I’m sorry I haven’t updated my blog for a while.  I’ve found some things I’d like to blog about, but have had both zero time and little internet access.

Since May I’ve been swamped with working for my MSc exams, the closer they got the more stressed I became and couldn’t bring myself to be remotely creative!  They finished in early June, and went surprisingly well considering the sheer volume of information I had to remember.  I clearly recall getting to the final exam, sitting down, and being so tired that I had to force myself to begin answering questions.  Normally I feel the fear in exams and start writing immediately, but this was utter exhaustion.  I get the results sometime this week hopefully, but I’m not the sort that agonises over the wait.

After the exams I went off to Paris for a couple of days to see my girlfriend, which was ace.  I actually managed to relax there.  Then came back and moved to Swansea to start working on my research project.  This was where more stress hit me.  If you ever need to get information from Swansea University, don’t count on it being true, or them helping you one bit.  As I’m a postgrad, I asked if they would give me accommodation for a couple of months whilst I settle in and find a place.  The response was, “Yeah, sure.  That’s no problem, we have spaces now.”  This was at at the start of the week before I moved, whilst I was in Paris.  It got to the end of the week, they’d had my application form, so I called them when I got back to England: they hadn’t sorted a room as there were no spaces, even though most of the students had moved out.  They were thoroughly unhelpful to me, leaving me up the creek without a paddle.

I then went to stay with my best friend in Cardiff, hoping to find a place in Swansea over the weekend and move in.  Having no car, an knowing hat the transport system in Wales leaves much to be desired, this was going to me no mean feat.  Thankfully on the Sunday I found a place, although I wasn’t quite sure about the landlord, I was desperate.  So I moved in on the Monday after work, dragging my suitcase over the majority of Wales.

The landlord turned out to be a dodgy piece of work (always trust your instincts!); wanting a huge cash deposit so he could fix the lock on the front door, which he hadn’t told me about.  So I moved out during the Tuesday when my boss gave me the time off, and moved into a B&B on the beachfront.  I recommend the Oyster Hotel if you’re ever in Swansea they have lovely ensuite rooms for £20-25 per night, great service and breakfast is included.

I finally found a place on the Thursday, and then had to rent a car to go back home and pick up all my stuff, including my new MacBook Pro (hmm.. Apple’s built in spell-checker doesn’t recognise ‘MacBook’) that had arrived during the week, I’m typing on it now   That cost enough, but it’s a good job I paid £30 extra for zero excess, else I would’ve had to pay £500 for the alloy wheel I scratched on a curb.  Should have taken a photo of it to post here, but just imagine a brand-new Corsa with a busted rim

I think the internet will be connected in the house when I get back from work; if you’re reading this then it has been!  We’re having a 20mb line put in so I think video -chatting on Skype with my girlfriend will work fine, don’t you?

The best part of all this was when the Hospital Accommodation office rang me during the week.  I don’t think I said why this all happened in the first place?  They said their staff housing was full.  I got a mid-week answer machine message, “When are you going to pick up your room keys?”.  Love the NHS, they had a room reserved for me for ages, but told me nothing about it.

So what have I learnt from this?

• Never trust Swansea University
• Pack light when you have nowhere to live
• If you landlord sounds a bit off, run
• As long as you have your phone and you wallet you can cope with anything
• Always pay extra when you hire a car
• I want a Corsa, but would probably scratch the wheels when driving off the forecourt
• I love my Mac

Oh, and the research project is going really well.  Once I know what I’m doing I’ll put something up about it.

Norton Antivirus Crashes China

Most of you reading this may not believe me, but I thought I’d have to do some journalism and report something that’s been omitted from Western news sites.

China Has Been Oddly Silent
I was on the phone to my Chinese girlfriend yesterday (she lives with her mother in Paris), who told me that her father had called from Beijing to explain why her Mother’s computer in Paris had crashed. It turns out that an update to Norton Antivirus managed to wipe key system files from all Windows computers in Chinese! This has affected about 80% of the computers in China, and was only recoverable by those with a Windows install disk, which is not many due to the amount of computers bought with and OEM version of Windows.

He father also said that the disaster had caused a wave of suicides amongst businessmen, reported all over the Chinese news agencies, presumably resulting from a loss of money in stocks.

I still haven’t been able to find anything about this on Google, and her they can’t check the Chinese sites on her mother’s computer as they don’t have a Windows disk to reinstall the system, her own Windows computer cannot be used to type in Chinese.

Cornholio

I can hear him now:

I am Cornholio!

I found this on the interestingness page on Flickr, it seems that I’m not the only one who loves this shot. You can click the image to go to the original.

There’s a Wolverine in My Science

I’m going through all my notes at the moment, trying to learn for my Master’s Degree exams. I occasionally, or more frequently, or well…. I take breaks. In one of my many ventures into the land of the interweb, I found this. It’s an article from the Science Creative Quarterly, and it made me laugh out loud. Especially the section that descirbes an experiment, akin to Schrödinger’s cat, will result in a zombie wolverine.

Read of the world if the climate in Ancient Greece were a sloght colder. I’m submitting my own writings to it too, I’ll let you know if I get published. Oh, and any insight into my Medical Physics exams would be most appreciated.

Google - Advice to Reduce Carbon Footprint

In keeping with the focus on cutting one’s carbon emissions, and lowering one’s carbon footprint, our well loved search engine is going to far.

When searching for the best way to travel from New York to London, go to Google’s maps (click the image above) and read their directions, especially number 23. Although driving is recommended while on terra firma, they recommend swimming across the Atlantic! Presumably this will make up for all those nasty emissions we put out during the rest of the year.

The final kick in the teeth? After swimming for 3,462 miles, you’re fatigued, delerious, dehydrated and hungry, and what do you hear…

“Bonjour!”
Ahh, if Google ruled the world.

DRM-Free Tracks to be Sold on iTunes

Gracefulflavor

I understand why people don’t particularly like DRM on their tracks, but let’s not forget that it allowed the iTS possible. I’m hesistant to hail this is a killer move; but a great option, yes.

I wonder how long it will take for all the non-DRM tracks to be available over sharing networks like BitTorrent. Call me naïve but I do think that too many people will take advantage of this to get more free music. I know lots will be careful enough to not put them in a shared folder for the world t see, but there’s many stupid people out there.

I’ll get slated for this, but I like DRM, it has allowed me to get the music I want, simply and cheaply. The iTS enabled me to buy music, rather than paying for overpriced CDs. Having the option to choose your player is great, but I love iPods, and I think its very important that people don’t steal.

Anyway, if I wanted to put all my stuff on another player I’d burn it and rip it(which would take forever), I’d never share it, I have a conscience. Please don’t think I’m implying everyone who has non-DRM music is a criminal, but there are enough people out there who copy music to damage iTunes sales in the long-run.

The best part of this is the higher bit-rate of these unprotected tracks. I’ll buy some for that reason alone, but don’t expect to get them off me!

UPDATE: Just listening to the news on BBC Radio 1, only the biggest radio station in the UK, broadcast worldwide; and what was their headline?

“Why it will now be a little easier for you to share music with your mates.”

That’s irresponsible.

Jenga

At the end of a long week.
For those of you who don’t know, I’m training to be a Medical Physicist, and as part of this I had to go to Coventry University to study Anatomy and Physiology.

Our tutor said that the week was going to be intensive, hellish, too hard, and boring (yes, that’s an Oxford comma: it has it’s place). We all went thinking we were going to hate it, but came out loving it. One of the best parts of this course in most of our minds.

Oh, and the photo is the leftovers from our last meal in the canteen there before going home. The tower lasted long enough. As physicists, we all know that if you get each bottle in the centre of a pizza box, the tower will hold. This is why we’re not engineers, the theory is good enough for us.

Do you know Kung-Fu?

This guy does! Watch this one first.

Then Part 2.

Why is it whenever it gets close to exams, there arises something so awesome that I won’t want to revise. You’ll not thank me for this, you’ll get addicted to playing it (read the hints at the bottom of the page if it gets too hard).

Klingon Language in Mac OS 10.4?

Can somebody please tell me why I have KLINGON language support on my computer! Well, when I turned it on, no programs had a Klingon interface, but still. I think someone somewhere has way too much time on their hands. And yes, the reason I know that it says Klingon is because I used to watch Star Trek avidly, like you wouldn’t believe. I’m kinda glad those days are gone now, I still appreciate it but one day I just stopped watching. I think the sun was shining outside, so I went out.